Josh Zeitlin

COL ’14
Age: 23
Hometown: Nashville, Tenn.
Major: Government

What’s your favorite class you’ve taken at Georgetown?
My favorite class that I took at Georgetown is probably Madeleine Albright’s class, “America’s Diplomatic Toolbox.” Anytime you can raise your hand and say, “ So Madame Secretary…” is pretty great. There’s the simulation at the end where you’re doing U.N. Security Council things. It’s pretty great.

What do you do?
Did the College Dems thing for a long time, helped when the Georgetown Progressive wasn’t actually a thing to resurrect it and get people writing for and reading it. I did Children’s Theater for several semesters at Georgetown. The highlight of that was when I was The White Rabbit in “Alice in Wonderland.” That was a shining moment in my Georgetown career. I’ve done a lot of campaign stuff, communications stuff off the Hilltop. I took three semesters off, so I’m doing an extra year. I took one off for a State House campaign in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee; one for the Obama campaign to be a field organizer in Charlotte, N.C.; and then one to be a White House intern in Vice President Biden’s communications department. And then I went abroad for a semester to Edinburgh, Scotland. I’ve only been on campus enrolled in classes in the fall at Georgetown my freshman year.

Was it hard coming back to Georgetown after taking so many semesters off and doing so many different things besides schoolwork?
The beginning of each semester it took some adjustment in terms of getting back into the grind. But on the whole, it was nice. I probably got burnt out a little less when I was here than other people. It was pretty hard keeping in touch with people, but it was easy to get back into the social groove of things. This semester was kind of different in character because a lot of people I came in with graduated. This was the hardest semester. I was so ready to be done. Can I just move on to post-graduation? But that might be more of a last semester senior year thing than anything else.

What do you find most frustrating about Georgetown?
I would definitely say that so many people are pre-professional focused. I would love more quirkiness at Georgetown. I think we miss some of that. Half of my best friends from high school are engineers that bring their own unique way of looking at the world. By not having that component, by not having people who critically think that way that a lot of engineers do, we’re missing out at good ole G-Town. 

But you took off three semesters to work. Wasn’t that very pre-professional?
I guess I mean people who in their pre-professionalism take themselves super seriously. I took all three of those semesters off primarily to make an impact instead of for pre-professional reasons.

What do you like most about Georgetown?
Besides friends, of course, all the cool opportunities of being in D.C., the legit speakers that come, that I can take a class with Madeleine Albright or all these cool professors. Some of my favorite classes have been with professors who are Jesuits, which have been really cool. 

Do you feel obliged to be busy at Georgetown?
I would say, “Yes, but…” I feel obliged to be busy as an intern and finding things that I think are interesting. This semester I decided to drop my JUPS minor and therefore my thesis because I thought that, along with senior year and job stuff, would make me too busy and too stressed. Balance is important and something I’m not always great at. But any of that pressure to be busy I put on myself. I don’t see it as a competitive thing.

Will you donate to Georgetown and why?
I’ll answer your question with another question: Do I plan on winning the lottery? If the answer is yes and I do win the lottery, then yes. But no, even with financial aid or whatever, I’ve given so much money to Georgetown it would be a long long time before I would donate to Georgetown. It’s expensive. I’ve been donating to Georgetown a lot of money for several years.

What are your plans after Georgetown? Does this question annoy you?
It doesn’t annoy me because it’s not something I’m not already thinking about. It’s stressful. I can’t answer it yet. I want to do health care policy stuff, some entry-level thing before grad school. I’ve applied to a lot of places there, a lot of places where health care policy and communications intersect, so if nothing else works I’ll start applying to Hill jobs.

What would you change about yourself?
I would be better at keeping in touch with people which I’m really bad at. It’s not that I don’t, I just could be better. And I’m terrible with names. There’s a point at which you’re praying someone else will say it first, but if you’ve met two or three times, people take it personally that you don’t remember their names.

Interview by Victoria Edel